Dad abused his chil­dren

Ap­peal court jails fa­ther for 10 years

A fa­ther who sex­u­ally abused his daugh­ters has had his prison sen­tence in­creased from nine months to 10 years.

The 40-year-old Emi­rati was given the lesser term by Dubai Court of First In­stance in Fe­bru­ary, how­ever the Court of Ap­peal in­creased the sen­tence af­ter pros­e­cu­tors claimed it was too le­nient.

The fa­ther had sub­jected his chil­dren, now aged 12 and 16 to abuse over a two-year pe­riod.

He started abus­ing the older girl at the age of 14, call­ing her to his room when she got home from school and as­sault­ing her. When she started try­ing to avoid her fa­ther, he be­gan abus­ing her lit­tle sis­ter. On oc­ca­sion he would abuse them in the liv­ing room and some­times in his car.

The girls were sub­jected to the abuse about once a week, the court was told.

Their 34-year-old mother dis­cov­ered what was hap­pen­ing when she used her hus­band’s mo­bile phone and saw video clips of him as­sault­ing their daugh­ters.

“I was check­ing his phone when I saw pictures and clips of the girls,” she said.

“The video showed him tak­ing off the clothes of our 12-year-old daugh­ter and abus­ing her while she screamed at him say­ing ‘stop, stop, daddy’.”

When she spoke to her daugh­ters, they told her that their fa­ther warned them against telling any­one, es­pe­cially her, as the fam­ily would be de­stroyed if they did.

The fa­ther emo­tion­ally black­mailed his daugh­ters by telling them he would be jailed and the fam­ily would be torn apart. “He con­fessed to me what he had done when I con­fronted him,” the mother said.

The fa­ther, who de­nies sex­ual as­sault, can ap­peal the verdict within 30 days.